May. 08, 2012

Coming up this Friday, we'll talk with the executive producer of The Weight of the Nation, HBO's new four-part documentary that looks at the causes and effects of being overweight and obese in America.

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Melissa Healy suggests that when the documentary airs on HBO next week, it may be "a rude shock for Americans whose nightly ritual involves grabbing a snack and escaping to a televised world without fat people while junk-food advertisements wash seductively and insistently over them."

She explains that viewers will see:

"...women who instinctively straighten their tops over their middles as they sit and men whose beefy chests have risen to fill their shoulders, chins and cheeks. They recount how they came to fill their XXL clothes, how their knees hurt and where they are in their slide toward Type 2 diabetes. And they demonstrate how hard it is, once fat, to get unfat."

Do you think an unflinching look at America's flabby reality can encourage the country to address its growing weight problem?

About Leslie Taylor

Leslie is the online editor at Workboat.com and NationalFisherman.com. She has a background in oceanography and is passionate about getting non-scientists and young people to realize how cool science can be. She is also Science Friday's former web editor.

The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Science Friday.